Robots make the food at this Bay Area burger joint

Shawn Knight

Posts: 15,253   +192
Staff member
In context: Consistency is a big factor for many when it comes to food prep and I can’t think of anything more consistent than a robot making food the exact same way each and every time.

Robotic bartenders have been serving up cocktails to cruise passengers for years and soon, that level of automation will be available on land.

Creator, formerly known as Momentum Machines, will be opening to the public in San Francisco next Wednesday. The start-up has crafted a robotic burger-making machine consisting of 20 computers, 350 sensors and 50 actuators that grinds meat to order, seasons it, cooks it and adds toppings – all in just five minutes.

Best yet, the gourmet burger will cost customers just $6.

The first storefront has two machines that can produce around 120 burgers per hour. It’ll be a bit slower than that at launch although over time as techniques improve, that figure could ramp up to as many as 400 per hour according to Bloomberg.

Creator will offer four different burgers at opening although the real fun will start a few months later when the accompanying app arrives, allowing diners to customize things like the type and amount of sauce, seasoning and cheese added to their creations.

Creator aims to bring its burger-making machines to other cities over time as well as venues like airports, stadiums, universities and train stations.

All images courtesy Kate Krader, Bloomberg

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Anyone watch the latest season of X-Files where Mulder and Sculley go into an all-robotics Sushi restaurant? I guess we're getting there. It was hilarious yet scary because all the machines were connected and had information on them including when they ran out of items at home and automatically order them and drop them off via drones, etc. But it was all started because Mulder refused to tip the robots at the restaurant.
 
Because burgers prepared by teenagers and high school dropouts are prepared at a higher standard?

You're gonna miss the burgers made by hand, with personal touch and dedication...

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Keep protesting for a higher minimum wage, kiddies..your future job opportunities will be limited to CEO or ditch digger.

Dude, even if it was $2 a hour, eventually they'd still be replaced by robots. Robots will at some point ALWAYS be cheaper than humans.
 
Keep protesting for a higher minimum wage, kiddies..your future job opportunities will be limited to CEO or ditch digger.

Dude, even if it was $2 a hour, eventually they'd still be replaced by robots. Robots will at some point ALWAYS be cheaper than humans.

Yes, but the higher the wage for automated labor, the quicker it will be automated. Lower wages will at least allow a transition period of a few decades before automation completely takes over these jobs.
 
Keep protesting for a higher minimum wage, kiddies..your future job opportunities will be limited to CEO or ditch digger.

A lot more than just minimum wage jobs are going to be taken over by robotics, automation, and artificial intelligence in the next 5 to 10 to 20 years. Explain why you think a robot or computer couldn't do YOUR job specifically.
 
Sadly, most of the residents of San Fransisco are far too "trendy", to have the common sense to boycott this abomination
 
Well this is interesting but we all know robots will be doing all the cooking for now on. There is no need to hire anyone to prepare food for us. The burger will look like a burger again. You want it rare, medium or well done. You select on POS (point of sale) tablet or large LED/LCD 4K whatever you want to call it screen panel. That's how it's here in South of Florida for some MC CAFE code name MC Donald's outlets chains. There is no need to have anyone take your order you can do it now. Technically speaking when you go through the drive-thru you don't have to talk to anyone except the AI. I look forward to these robots. Same goes when you are at WalMart check out you can use Scan-N-Go process.
 
Lol Is it? Never heard that one before.
Well, yes it is American English slang for a toilet. Apparently it originally attached to passenger train toilets, but became generic slang later on.

"Hopper" is likely before your time, as I'm pushing 70, and I inherited the term from my parents and grandparents.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hopper. "hopper" will be definition #6 under "noun".

ALSO: Why is a toilet called a hopper?
Hopper toilet. The traditional method of disposing human waste from trains is to deposit the waste onto the tracks or, more often, onto nearby ground using what is known as a hopper toilet. This ranges from a hole in the floor to a full-flush system (possibly with sterilization).
 
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